Brand new brewer here and I've chosen to make a variation of a honey nut brown ale. My local brew supply place has a generic receipt that I am using as my start. I really like the Mammoth double nut ale, so I want to add whatever it takes to get it a little closer to that flavor. So, I started looking at the ingredients and most of the clone receipts call for "brown and chocolate malts." However, my receipt uses amber malts & caramel hops and none of the other ingredients say brown of chocolate. My question is, is caramel or amber the same thing as brown?

Be careful adding chocolate malts as it is easy to go too far and get a bitter, chalky, roasty beer if you add too much. There are limits on how much of a particular malt you want a part of your grain bill.

No, they are not the same. I have a northern brown that used a tad bit of chocolate malt (.5 lb) and a low amount of hops (Fungle I think.) I used WL specialty English yeast (December). When making a English Brown, you should be shooting for a clear, sweet, and fruity ale.

However, you can do whatever flipps your boat! Take notes so you can repeat what you did if you find the best beer ever.

according to Clone Brews by Tess and Mark Szamatulski, they honey malt should give you some nutty characteristics.

According to the Brew Wiki, adding some Mild Ale Malt should work as well. A dash of chocolate could help out as well. I can only guess on how much malt. Maybe half a # Mild Malt and half a # honey... .25 lb chocolate (US 350 SRM)??

I am only guessing on those recommendations. Shooting from the hip.

But, I put that recipe into Beersmith and it should stay in line with American Brown Ale...

I have never made a Nut Brown, so I can only make educated guesses on what goes into it. Sorry man! Perhaps you can search for the recipe section for better info.